‘Draupadi’ as a Subaltern Text

Etymologically the term ‘Subaltern’ means ‘inferior in status or rank’ or

‘inconsequential’. Derived from original Latin term ‘Subalternus’, where ‘sub’ stands for ‘next
below’ and ‘alternus’ means ‘every other’, the word ‘Subaltern’ has a long past. By 1800, several
authors wrote novels and histories about military campaigns in India and America from a
subaltern perspective; and G.R.Gleig (1796-1888) was known as the master of this genre and he
wrote biographies of Robert Clive, Warren Hastings and Thomas Munro. The Great War brought
into focus the popular accounts of subaltern life in published memoirs and diaries. Immediately
after the Russian revolution, Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) started using the term in non-military
sense in his theories of class struggle. He used the term in his Prison Note book which was
written during 1929 to 1935 when he was put behind the bar by Mussolini. To escape the close
scrutiny of the Mussolini government, Gramsci avoided the use of common and widely used
Marxist terms and invented new ones. ‘Subaltern’ was one such term. So, the term signified
subordination and Gramsci attached a special significance to this military term by incorporating
“peasants, workers and other groups denied access to hegemonic power”. The term “subaltern”
during colonization meant the colonized alone. But now, this umbrella term includes the
proletarians, the workers, the dalits, sons of Cain, the downtrodden etc. who have been cut off
from the mainstream of privilege and power. As the postcolonial theory develops, the term
‘subaltern’ has also got new momentum. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has used the term to
encompass the lower class people. She has given the term ‘subaltern’ new momentum by
focusing on the gendered subaltern and by examining the position of Indian women she declares
that subaltern cannot speak.

Subalternity becomes an overriding concept in literature when the marginalized section

of the society has no voice of its own. In India the caste system was so rigid that the lower caste
people had not even the freedom to share the pubic properties like roads, wells and even
educational institutions. People were divided on the basis of caste and people who belonged to
different castes would have to carry out certain duties assigned to them and they suffered the
greatest humiliations when they were segregated as untouchables from the main stream of the
society. The much acclaimed works of Bengali writer cum activist, Mahasweta Devi, are the
sites of dissent, resistance and protest by the gendered subalterns against the hegemonic
dominations of patriarchy and the establishment. Mahasweta Devi’s feminism is based on the
opposition of denial of woman as an equal human being by the male-dominated society. Among
the subalterns, a woman is doubly suppressed. She is seen as a commodity not as an individual.
The elites as well as the members of her own society cause this suppression and exploitation.
Even in the middle class society a woman does not get equal opportunities. Spivak’s definition of
the subaltern as sections that remain disempowered even after the political independence
becomes doubly true when applied to the gendered subaltern. The gendered subaltern is the class
that is created by the over dominance of the patriarchy and it is very much possible that men will
enjoy the benefits of political power, but the women will continue to be subordinate. Sati, the
practice of widow self-immolation on the pyre of their dead husband, is the finest example to
support Spivak’s argument that subaltern women do not get the opportunity to voice their ideas
and their voices do not reach the dialogic level of utterance. The tribal women suffer from triple
marginalization in terms of caste, class and gender.

Mahasweta Devi’s writings at once both debunk and contravene the gender and cultural
norms of the society. Fuelling political activism at the grass-root level, she foregrounds the
exploitative social system by highlighting the injustices done to the tribals like Santhals, Lodhas,
Mundas and Shabars. Her Breast Stories are based on those rarely disclosed or constantly
overlooked accounts where women are stripped of their honour and their humanity. According to
Spivak, the “breast” of a woman in these stories becomes the instrument of a vicious
denunciation of patriarchy. Indeed, breast, common to all women can be constructed as the motif
for violence in the short stories “Breast Giver”, “Draupadi” and “Behind the Bodice”. Trying to
re-read Devi’s Breast Stories from the point of “gendered” marginalization, we see Mahasweta
Devi’s literary work exposes the violence that has been meted out to generations of women and
how women have been victims of the politics of gender, class and caste played at various levels
of social relationships. We see how Jashoda of “Breast Giver” has been exploited and degraded
for years. We also come across Dopdi and Gangor, the protagonist of other two short stories
“Draupadi” and “Behind the Bodice” respectively. We visualize the horrific tales of these
women forcibly straight-jacketed into the mythical assumptions of “womanhood” perpetuated
through patriarchal ideology. Devi also documents Dopdi and Gangor repraisal against
subjugation which becomes the means to their potential emancipation. Mahasweta Devi’s
fictional works are based on those rarely disclosed or constantly overlooked accounts where
women are stripped of their honour and humanity. It is the physical, emotional and psychological
rape that forces woman to strip the cloak of chastity obedience and meekness off her,
transforming this act of disrobing into a symbol of female power. The Breast Stories are really
horror stories. The Breast, as Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak, the translator of the three stories, says,
is much more than merely a symbol in these works. The breast becomes the object of attention of
the male gaze and ultimately the national gaze as well. It becomes a bizarre tool of attack, a
conscience-searching counter-offensive in itself. These stories are an indictment of a social
system which is exploitative. “Draupadi” depicts how a marginalized tribal woman derives
strength from her body and her inner feminine core to fight against her marginality. Here, the
woman’s body becomes an instrument of vicious denunciation of patriarchy and hegemony
which are ironical, counter canonical, anti-literary, and contradictory. In “Draupadi”, the victim’s
body is brutally abused with unutterable ugliness since she speaks with her body, and the biting
irony confounds the traditional polarization of cultural (caste and class) and biological (gender)
aspects. “Draupadi” embodies ‘hegemonic masculinity,’ ‘female emancipation,’ ‘double
colonization’ ‘societal power relations,’ ‘centre-periphery articulation,’ ‘master-slave dialectics,’
and ‘gender-bender dynamics.’ In “Draupadi,” the erotic object transforms into an object of
torture and revenge where the line between hetero-sexuality and gender-violence conjures. These
contextual factors account for the quantity of women’s politicization and the quality of women’s
political life. “Draupadi” offers the trivial shifts from “customs and traditions” to “barbaric,”
then to “violence against women,” and finally to “rights violation”. By juxtaposing the breast
symbol with the historical names of the protagonists in her short stories she emphatically brings
out the cruel sufferings of the gendered subaltern.
 “Draupadi” was published in Mahasweta Devi’s collection of short stories, titled
Agnigarbha (Womb of Fires, 1978). It is a story of brutal rape and excruciating torture suffered
by a tribal woman called Draupadi who dares to confront the oppressive system represented by
the Senanayak. The Draupadi of the Mahabharata was saved from dishonour and humiliation
through divine intervention. But the eponymous heroine of the story, “Draupadi” could not find
any such superhuman assistance to save her modesty. But the inhuman torture to which she is
subjected resurrected the rebel woman in her who emerges as the most eloquent voice against
patriarchial and elitist domination. Mahasweta Devi wrote “Draupadi” for representing the
subaltern Indian Society. It depicts the economic, political, social and sexual oppression of the
Dalit women in tribal areas. Anguished tribals, disillusioned with twenty years’ fake
independence and frustrated with feudal-state nexus, join the Naxalite group being headed by
Arijit and perpetrate revenge-killing on Surja Sahu and his sons. Dopdi and Dulna Mejhen who
represent the anguished tribals here are found to lead the Naxalite movement in the story under
discussion. Hence they incur the ire of administration and become the target of the Senanayak.
They carry on clandestinely the activities of the Naxalites in the tribal belt in disguise in order to
deceive the police. Dopdi and her husband Dulna join in the movement. Police have been
searching for them. They lie flat on the ground, pretending dead during the rebellion. They later
flee the village to lead the life of fugitives. The couple maneuvers to escape the brutal forces of
the police by using the guerilla type struggle. They fight with primitive and homely weapons
such as hatches, and scythes, bows and arrows. Dedicating themselves absolutely to the cause of
the Naxalite movement the couple works in different guises at different villages in the Jharkhani
belt foregoing their dreams of a family and stable life for the larger goal of the movement which
is to achieve a new social order and economic freedom. Proudly announcing themselves as
soldiers, the couple – Dolna and Dopdi Mejhen pass on all details about the movement of the
army to their comrades. The victimization of such a couple by the State forces highlights the
predicament of the tribal people.

Here, through Dopdi, Mahasweta Devi has tried to raise certain question of responsibility, as she
herself demands certain political responses from us. She expects us to know something about the
Naxalbari movement and she also wants us to understand something about the revolution that
Dopdi is fighting for us. The most interesting part of the story is that Dopdi is portrayed as an
illiterate, uneducated tribal woman. Yet she leads the politicized life amongst all because she is
engaged in an armed struggle for the rights and freedom of the tribal people. Being a tribal
means that she is not considered as a part of mainstream Indian society. She thus occupies lowest
rung in a class based society. We find here in the story that the status and respect women are
accorded in tribal society is far superior to that of women in mainstream Hindu society. They are
treated as equals and protected from the kind of denigration women face elsewhere, as Dopdi
here in the story is fighting shoulder to shoulder with her husband. It is in the third part of the
story that she is provoked to fight male oppression singly, and in the conclusion the use of the
white clothe which is associated with purity and innocence, visually contrasted with Dopdi’s
black body, and is very powerful. So, here Mahasweta Devi represents Dopdi not as victim but
she is equal to men who fight for her rights. Even Mahasweta’s Draupadi raises her voice against
extreme torture and atrocities inflicted on the tribal people. The way of protest Dopdi takes is
very different and makes it an extremely shocking, powerful and innovative narrative. She is an
ordinary tribal woman but in reality she has created stir among police and military authorities
who are on massive hunt for her. They remain confused about her real name, Dopdi or Draupadi.
Dopdi is a peasant tribal name and Draupadi is derived from the name of the famous character in
Mahabharata. In the epic, Draupadi is married to five Pandavas. Spivak says, “Within a
patriarchal and patronymic context she is exceptional, indeed “attacker” in sense of odd,
unpaired uncoupled. Her husbands, since they are husbands rather than lovers, are legitimately
pluralized.” Mahasweta’s story interrogates this singularity. Here, Dopdi does not let her
nakedness shame her, torture her, intimidate her, or let the rape diminish her. According to
Sunder Rajan : “It is simultaneously a deliberate refusal of a shared sign-system of pertaining to
nakedness and rape and an ironic deployment of the same semiotics to create the disconcerting
counter effects of shame, confusion and terror in the enemy.”

Coming back to the comparison of Dopdi with Draupadi in Mahabharata, the writer pinpoints
that both characters realize that the male claim to protect their honor is only an eyewash – a
pretension. Mythological Draupadi proves her worth and asserts herself by dignity preserved.
This Dopdi makes her presence felt by dignity compromised and plundered. Epic Draupadi lost
trust in her kinsmen as nobody came to her rescue and displayed sheer helplessness. Dopdi here
lost all her kinsmen in army operation and felt out of place in her own establishments. Having
witnessed the sham of social hierarchy, they emerge out to be more open, confident and self-
reliant. This prolonged parallelism between the epic heroine and the tribal laborer Draupadi, the
presumed analogy between the two leads to a revealing realization of Dalit identity and their
inherent reason for protest. Draupadi’s modesty was outraged, basically to degrade her
physically and through her scarred body weakening the spirit of tribal males was desired. The
same attempt was made by Kauravas to dishonour Draupadi (Mahabharat epic) by disrobing her
in the presence of courtiers to cut to pieces the pride of the Pandavas. Disrobing female body as
happened in case of both these women is commonly viewed by society as a symbol of female
degradation, female submission and the stripping of honor and humanity. Disrobing of garments
here create a dramatic climax. In Mahabharata’s Draupadi, the unveiling of garments reveals
immense female power. The act of disrobing results in a striking male reaction and symbolizes
the remarkable survival of a battered and abused woman. Dopdi, being strong in will and mind is
strengthened by rape. “Now Dopdi’ spreads her arms, raises her face to sky, turns towards the
forest and ululates with the force of her entire being, once, twice, three times”. She ‘tears her
piece of cloth with her teeth’ and astonishes the general with her nakedness. She gives a calm,
confident and a stringent answer to Sena Nayak : “You asked them to make me up, don’t you
want to see how they made me.” Dopdi uses her feminine nakedness as a weapon against her
enemy. She unveils herself to turn the violence; she endured, upon the man who perpetrated it on
her. Instead of allowing this abhorrent act to strip her of her dignity and sensibility, she is
empowered by ‘this violence’.

Male sexual violence is defeated simply by its demystification and Dopdi emerges as “terrifying
super object – an unarmed target.” In Mahasweta’s story, Draupadi acquires a new self-definition
and becomes the active maker of her own meaning. She refuses to remain the object of a male
narrative, asserts herself as “subject” and emphasizes on the truth of her own presence, she
constructs a meaning which “Senanayak simply cannot understand”. She becomes that which
resists “counter” male knowledge, power and glory; therefore he is “terribly afraid”. So Gayatri
Spivak says, “Dopdi is what the Draupadi who is written into the patriarchal and authoritative
sacred text of male power could not be.” Through the compelling interplay of politics and
history, Devi exposes the irony of the patriarchal hegemonic societies that eulogize the idea of
protecting a woman’s honour at all cost but given a chance, violates her without having any
qualm. Dopdi, the central character, is representative of millions of tribal women who are
oppressed, marginalized and victimized by the agents of politics. Although Draupadi is neither
able to speak the local dialect nor English, and therefore cannot participate in, is given a voice at
the end of the story. The voice is represented in her bare body when she finally confronts her
persecutor personally: “Draupadi comes closer” and the words “kounter me – come
on, kounter me” come out of her mouth, even though she has been terribly raped and tortured
by the soldiers. The word “kounter”, has a special meaning, as Draupadi does not understand
what this word actually means. As Mahasweta explains, it is an abbreviation for ‘killed by police
in an encounter’ the code description for death by police torture.(Spivak) Draupadi uses the word
before when she is talking to Mushai’s wife and explains to her that there is no sense in running
away from the police anymore. She says, “they [the police] will counter me. Let them”. She uses
the word “kounter” in a wrong manner because it actually means work against something, to
antagonize. Nevertheless, she knows, as Spivak explains, the code behind the word and that it
means torture. In the final scene, however, Daupadi suddenly seems to use the word in the right
manner as she “chooses the Senanayak’s white bush shirt to spit a bloody gob at” and confronts
him both verbally and physically. She is not willing to put on her clothes again to hide what the
soldiers did to her body – she resists and counteracts the army officer, she challenges him to
‘kounter’ her – but he cannot. “You can strip me, but how can you clothe me again? Are you a
man?” she asks in a terrifying tone and thereby not only degrades her oppressor in his rank, but
also in his masculinity. “Draupadi knows that in a certain sense, morality is gone; she expects no
better from her enemies, and instead challenges them to behold the atrocity they’ve already
committed”. (Wenzel) A transition of power between officer and tribal takes place although
Draupadi presumably will not survive this encounter; she becomes powerful, almost literally
“untouchable” for a moment and transforms the figure of Senanayak into a “subaltern” who
suddenly has no voice, no ‘army handbook’ and no western world’s guidelines to cope with the
situation. In other words, “this terrifying moment of confrontation transcends history, engulfs
time, and crystallizes Draupadi’s defiance”. (Wenzel) When Spivak poses the question “Can the
Subaltern Speak?” she means that the subaltern cannot articulate themselves and hence they
cannot speak. But Draupadi clearly uses her body to articulate herself, and she a “subaltern’ is at
least on fictional level able to speak ably and cow down her mighty adversary, Senanayak.

To sum up the argumentation, it can be said that at the beginning, the short story
“Draupadi” displays the two characters Senanayak and Dopdi as a dichotomy. The western
world influenced colonized army officer on the one hand and the excluded tribal, which is
condemned to death on the other. Through the usual way of writing, the text suggests that
Draupadi is in the social and cultural position of “the subaltern”. Furthermore; it has been proved
that language plays a major role in Devi’s narrative. Senanayak is obsessed in translating the
tribal language in order to (theoretically) understand them. When applying the concept of “the
subaltern” to the story, however, the text suggests that although we are dealing with substantial
power relations between the two main characters, the dichotomy begins to dissolve. A transition
of power takes place in the final scene when Draupadi counters her pursuer. Eventually the tribal
has a voice, which she articulates through her body and therefore confronts Senanayak and
breaks the gap between “theory” and “practice” within him. As stated earlier, one could argue
that Draupadi, now, although probably she will not survive this encounter with the army officer,
cannot be described as “subaltern” anymore. When Spivak claims that “the subaltern cannot
speak,” she is referring to the fact that someone has to speak foe or about them in order for
everybody else to hear and understand them. In the case of “Draupadi”, the author and activist
Mahasweta Devi “speaks” for them. This leads to the more complex and philosophical fact that
“the subaltern” themselves actually occupy a voice which cannot be acknowledged by the real
society. The following lines of the poem “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” remind me of a
positive hope: Let us not clip the wings and tie the feet of the gendered subaltern but instead
recognize “the other, the subaltern, downtrodden (M)other, above all a woman” as a free bird
that:
“. . . leaps
on the back of the winds
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.”